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Wow, wish I'd found this thread earlier. Came here for some taco recommendations, my country doesn't sell them as fast food so I have to make my own. I'm thinking of trying it with cod? What do you think? Also, just an immediate question: Is law school in the US really three years? Surely you have to have a few years of higher education first before getting into law school, right? Like "pre-law" or something? I ask because becoming a lawyer (attourney) where I live takes 5 years for a profession-oriented degree (doctor, psychologist and jurist are the three main ones) at a university (no college) offering the degree and then two years of practicing law under a barrister-type certified attourney, a certain amount of trials (civil and/or criminal), a mandatory bar association program/college course and a bar exam which is getting expanded into three years of practice and a six-month university course for a total of eight years six months to become a licenced attourney. I'm starting to think I got screwed if I could have just emigrated and gotten it done over in the US in half the bloody time.
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Mar 17, 2017 15:18
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Meatbag Esq. posted:In the US, everyone entering law school usually has a 4 year college degree of some type. So it's 7 in the states. Well thank christ for that. Is the 4 year degree a law degree (of lesser value, such as you'd qualify as a municipal administrator or paralegal, etc.) also?
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Mar 17, 2017 15:32
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^^^^ I have friends who've left fantastic positions in top law firms because they couldn't take that they'd have to play second fiddle for 3-4 years before they were allowed in the court room. I was never a straight A student so I was never a candidate for that stuff, so I went into private general practice and I was immediately thrown into the court room. Guess it's sort of the same everywhere? Toona the Cat posted:I have a classmate who majored in ceramics. Ainsley McTree posted:Nope. You can major in anything. Well. That's quite a thing. I guess it's good in the sense that you have something to fall back on if law doesn't work out? Still, bit of a dick move making you get four years worth of student loans on top of those three years if you're not going to use it or it's not relevant to the profession. Is there a minor in accounting or revision you could sort of combine with law? There's a great demand where I live for people who can do both revision and are jurists, because they are unusually suited for tax advisement (the usefulness of which cannot be overstated, the VAT tax system alone is millions in savings even for a small company if properly managed). Phil Moscowitz posted:This makes me laugh uncontrollably How is that even a question? I can tell from a contextual and natural interpretation alone that distribution in itself isn't exempt. Anyway, that ought to be immediately clarified by reading the preparatory notes to the law itself. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Mar 17, 2017 |
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Mar 17, 2017 18:35
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Phil Moscowitz posted:That's more than twice what state court judges make in LA too but yeah judges really shouldn't complain about having to spend (gasp) four hours telling people what to do before traipsing off for lunch and never coming back. Of course it's trying. That's why they call it a trial, duh. I hate this kind of attitude towards public assistance in litigation in general. Right-wingers routinely decry it as creating a litigious society, when they in actuality mean "oh no, it lets the poors sue and claim their rights". Even in my very socialist home country, public assistance baseline pays less than two thirds of average hourly for the same work, and is subject to billing hours review by the county municipal oversight authority, which routinely cuts an additional 20-30% of your billable hours on such cases, which vastly reduces the attourneys willing to take on those cases down to those with a loving conscience. That's not too many these days. Honestly, if the court system is going to be simply a system for people with means, what kind of legitimacy does it really hold?
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Mar 17, 2017 21:47
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Shoot the coffee into your butt OP Butt chugging caffeine is an ethics violation.
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Mar 19, 2017 14:48
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Abugadu posted:land management/ancestral land trust/chamorro land trust, the last of which is about to be part of a massive federal lawsuit over which the legislature is bound and determined to go down in flames, potentially making a gently caress-ton of poor people suddenly homeless. Wow, that's a pretty interesting case. IRRC, the norwegian supreme court was faced with a somewhat similar situation regarding the indigenous Sami population and their right to use/own a part of a mountain range pretty much on ancient custom and an agreement with municipal (which then binds state) authority - while also extinguishing the rights of local non-indigenous inhabitants. They made use of ICESCR, ICCPR, the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 ILO 169 and contract law with the main focus on the "subjective standard" interpretations of indigenous culture to rule in favour of the Sami, kind of over established norwegian contract law, which apparently was a bit of an upset and led to a small but noteworthy uptick of the racisms. All in all it sounds like a lot of very complicated work. I hope you find it rewarding, at least. Can you recommend any reading on it?
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Mar 20, 2017 14:54
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Abugadu posted:I can't discuss it too much, as I've gotten doxxed in the past(albeit low-grade) when commenting about anything public, it's a small island with red hot tempers flaring right now. But you can google 'guam plebiscite' and read the court opinion, which judges the CLTC's criteria (which was used in the plebiscite's law as the legal definition for those allowed to vote) as race-based and requiring strict scrutiny - not as huge of a 'welp you're screwed' as most people think, but historically we're looking at like a 20% chance at best without even going into case specifics, given the nature of the claim. Add to that, our elected leaders do not want to discuss a settlement or amendment with the feds, and if they could pass a law banning discussions just to show how passionate they are about this, they would. Well, that's lovely. Thanks for the pointer anyway. How's the US record on dealing with native people's rights, more generally speaking? Most of the major indigenous groups constantly clamor for some measure of selv-government. I know that this has been granted in a way with the native american "indian reservations", and as far as Guam goes it's pretty fascinating reading to see how much in common the Chamorro people have with other recognized indigenous people under special preservation or limited self-managment. Are the Chamorro people generally treated worse than native americans? Not to turn my nose up to the US or anything, they are neither the worst nor the best when it comes to native people's rights, but from a european perspective it's strange to see an issue like this arise without some state intervention to safeguard native rights and culture.
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Mar 21, 2017 13:22
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:Yeah, our record is uhhh, pretty...bad.... Comparatively, you wouldn't believe how lovely a lot of natives have been treated in europe and asia. I mean, mostly stopping short of genocide. I was more thinking of native's rights in the US (or Canada and Mexico, for that matter) in TYOOL 2017, because I don't really know very much about that subject and I couldn't find a comprehensive anything about it. Last I read about was that goddamned Dakota pipeline.
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Mar 21, 2017 14:11
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evilweasel posted:What happened to native americans in the US can really only be described as a shockingly effective genocide. It was a no man, no problem approach to solving the problem of native rights. An entire continent of people is now a tiny minority. I can't speak in totality for all of eurasia, but conditions for native populations have been if not as outright hostile as the USA-native american warfare, obliteration of language, culture and traditional trades and crafts (effectively extinguishing the cultural uniqueness of indigenous peoples) and assimilation policies have been very widespread and very effective overall, and didn't really ever stop. Russia and China are particularly bad, but there are no innocent nations. None. There have been attempts and arguments made for certain reparations, but progress is slow because there's a good amount of political opposition to this idea, and in Europe the refugee issue has pushed it way way back. I honestly don't see the US as dramatically worse, even if there's an obvious question of scale which isn't comparable. Then again, I don't really know the scope of the native american genocide, because it's simply not taught over here in any comprehensive way.
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Mar 21, 2017 15:14
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gently caress me in the knee. Just lost a case against the justice department, and the judgment is a pile of bullshit. Goddamnit. Client is very unlikely to want to appeal either, because then it gets real expensive. You'd think mere factual lack of innocence would be no reason to rule against someone, but it turns out no. Will beer and a semi-decent scotch remedy this? I believe a sovcit informed me I'm entitled to a remedy under admiralty law or something.
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Mar 23, 2017 13:44
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joat mon posted:What was the issue? Can't really go into details, but basically police have municipal authority over firearms, driver's licenses (etc) and other specific licencing and may under certain circumstances recall a licence. There's a really weird chain of appeal on those decisions, ending in the supreme court though this case will die in the lower courts. Basically, the specific case is really marginal to the applicable ruleset and really kind of a grey area with cases going every which way and no supreme court rulings on the matter since maybe the early nineteen hundreds? Hard to predict outcome, at least. One of the big reasons it was even a case to begin with is that it's part of a recent trend of increasing municipal authority overreach that stems solely from departmental directives and internal policy and has no basis in actual law (where nothing has changed the last 10-20 years), pretty much just municipal authority testing the legal boundaries of their decisions. Most of the time, David loving eats it and Goliat goes his merry way. I like all those suggestions, but it's not quite the weekend yet. I'll take it under advisement.
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Mar 23, 2017 14:33
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So is "Dallas lawyer" a term for a lawyer who's appeared on or is similar to a lawyer on the hit CBS tv-show "Dallas"?
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Mar 29, 2017 08:26
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I thought all document review processes were done by AIs these days. Can't wait until I'm literally terminated because of a Terminator. Progress!
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Mar 29, 2017 10:43
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blarzgh posted:No, its a term used by lawyers who practice in every county around Dallas County that means "unnecessarily aggressive, difficult, borderline unethical, expensive, douchey and drunk." This is some great poo poo, I had no idea (though I probably should have guessed) that this is a thing in the US too. Won a case against a supreme-court attourney from a big-law pretty much on this. Well, not really, but it surely didn't hurt.
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Mar 29, 2017 14:51
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:Now imagine you're a state's attorney from the big, notably liberal, "weird" state capital. You've just rolled into a one room courthouse in a rural county of 500 people, wearing a suit without boots. And you tell the judge you're there to take their land. "And then the mommy litigator and the daddy litigator make a lot of weird noises, and that's how appeals are born."
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Mar 29, 2017 16:15
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Roger_Mudd posted:Settling is for suckers and I hate it (serious). I hate it because in guided arbitration or settlement negotiations, I always have to push my own client to make concessions - or else no deal is made (duh) and all we do is waste time and money. This puts the blame on me for a middle-of-the-road result instead of some judge. I don't like that. Or maybe it's just high-risk cases I don't like, cause those are the only ones I try to settle. My productivity has been absolutely poo poo lately and I've been stressed out of my gourd. Anyone have any bright ideas? That don't involve drugs of some sort.
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Mar 30, 2017 22:58
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CaptainScraps posted:Vacation. For real. My productivity jumped way up after a week off. You know, I think you're right. It's been a while. I'm taking a week come Easter. A mountain cabin and a book, I think.
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Mar 31, 2017 07:26
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nm posted:Take 2. I never feel like a full week is enough. I took a month once 2 years ago (went to Iceland, Prague and a few others), and it was the best thing ever. Nah, I don't. Been looking for one, though. Who doesn't want a piece of that? Luckily I live in a socialized hellscape utopia, where there's a month of mandatory vacation time every year regardless of what you do. Also a bunch of national holidays, including Easter where the work week is shortened by a few days. So I'm really only taking three days off, but getting like... 9 days? I'm actually quite spoiled. Leaving my goddamned work phone though.
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Mar 31, 2017 08:19
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GamingHyena posted:Learning the business of law is a bitch and a half. I'd hate to add on top of that learning to practice in a brand new area. I can somewhat understand leaving a lovely job, but at least leave it for something equal or better. It took me three years to even begin to get my legs under myself properly for litigation, and I had a great starting point. If I came straight from some in-house position I would have been eaten alive. Roger_Mudd posted:War story time: Do y'all people not have ethics rules? Doing this (in front of witnesses) would be an almost guaranteed bollocking by the bar association disciplinary board. I mean, it's not "loss of licence" bad, but still, why even go there.
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Apr 5, 2017 08:21
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Phil Moscowitz posted:While unprofessional, it's probably not unethical. Professionalism is only an aspirational goal for American lawyers. Interesting. Professionalism and proper conduct/respect is an ethics issue here. Both verbally and in writing, berating a collegue in an unprofessional manner is actually subject to the less serious ethics sanctions. Of course, most cases never make it toe the board for a number of reasons. There's still a good bit of cases on it. Always makes for interesting reading. mastershakeman posted:yeah I've seen a ton worse than that between lawyers outside court and that isn't even in family law which has its own reputation for psycho attorneys Funny, most of our psychos/colourful attourneys are criminal defence/CPS-defence specialist. Family law isn't really a subject for specialization. In related news, a client just got her kid picked up by CPS for violating a pretty decent deal I'd cut with them that let her keep the kid and got her Financial Aid to de-gently caress her life. Called me crying not two hours ago. Sad, but I had a gut feeling she'd gently caress it up. Now there's the difficult issue of whether the kid is better off and if there's a chance in hell I can help at all anymore. I hate CPS cases, always just ugly all around.
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Apr 5, 2017 16:17
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blarzgh posted:I've typed all this out to hide the identities of the lawyers involved. I was not one of them. That's pretty nasty. In a recent negotiation, the attourney for the opposing party started giving out unsolicited legal advice to my clients in front of me. Literally, "this is my advice to you as a lawyer, I guarantee the outcome of [this and that municipal thing] so you should just take what we're offering you, really". I told the attourney to put it down in writing, but they refused for some reason  Why does this profession attract such disingenous pieces of poo poo?
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Apr 5, 2017 22:00
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Nichol posted:There was a local practice direction not long ago about civility in the criminal bar, apparently people had been overheard calling Crown Counsel (prosecutors) "Fascists," "or worse". It wasn't me. It was me, or, more accurately I do this all the time. I don't think it was me in particular. Hah! Fun fact, in Sweden, the fasces is literally a part of the official police emblem. CaptainScraps posted:I cannot even begin to fathom what the gently caress I did to make everything go this batshit. Wow, that's intense. Similarly, my previously posted idiot client who got a child taken away from them had me file an emergency petition for a child protective tribunal hearing. Can't very well dump them as a client, because they'd be hosed getting another lawyer for a tribunal case during spring break, and also there goes my week of vacation mother gently caress a duck. I'm spending most of next week now in emergency litigation and immediate appeal (loving fast-track system bullshit). I don't have time for this poo poo. I have clients paying real money waiting in line (public assistance pays quite poorly these days). At least I can pretend to be a good person for a while, I hope. On the other hand, I have a job. Which is always something to remember and be thankful for.
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Apr 6, 2017 21:13
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Wow, you all are a bunch of fascists.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:15
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Oh look, a preview of monday's tribunal Tribunal chairman  My closing argument 
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Apr 7, 2017 12:27
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mastershakeman posted:except in traffic cases or evictions or foreclosures or god knows what else where the intent is to delay and it has a 100% success rate. I've actually lost motions against these people where the judge had it out for my case and it didn't matter what they filed so long as they put words on paper. Jup. Not in the US, but this is the most common example over here. I've actually got an impending ruling on court cost compensation from one of these (successful) attempts at stalling an eviction through filing a (vexatious) motion for a special process (for which the rear end in a top hat obviously had no standing). Of course, the motion was immediately slapped down and I've an obscure statute that allows me to file for compensation for my client over this crap, but they used the filing itself as grounds for suspending the eviction temporarily. Any temporary suspension in an eviction process is supposed to be subject to legal review by the case handler, but wouldn't you loving know it they accepted the rather obviously idiotic motion as grounds for suspension - in direct violation of procedure I might add. It gets done because you can sometimes get some sort of result. Even if it doesn't, people still belive stupid crap in opposition of direct and irrefutable evidence. It's probably not ever going away, either.
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Apr 9, 2017 21:33
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:I take my first vacation in three years and I get the loving flu coming home. And I got a flu shot too. Sounds like you had a pretty sick time, bro.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:44
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terrorist ambulance posted:lmao a third of a million dollars in debt. these people do it to themselves I'm fairly newly minted and I'm in the hole for about 50 000$. For comparison, that's about equivalent to a tenth of the value of an average house. Luckily they are socialism'd loans and are legally required to be just incredibly cheap. Almost no interest. The system works!
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Apr 10, 2017 18:54
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blarzgh posted:Boo this man! Boooo! Listen, I'm humoristically challenged, okay. It's a legitimate disability. I'm a freeposter of the land.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:11
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Nice piece of fish, here is a choice of law question in real time! I am trying to figure out whether to argue for Louisiana or Texas law to apply to this insurance contract. I'm reading and also interested. If it's not too much trouble, I'd love a quick summary on the relevant Louisiana statute as well, just for comparison. For funsies I'm going to compare it to "my" insurance law, so I might comment if I can understand the issue properly and make a comparison that makes any kind of sense. Because I am a nerd.
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Apr 11, 2017 23:58
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Phil Moscowitz posted:The Louisiana statute doesn't have language like this. It simply says that automobile policies must provide coverage Pretty interesting. I was scratching my head trying to figure out why I couldn't off the top of my head think of a comparison to our insurance law, so I looked up the statutes and almost smacked myself in the face. Of course I've never heard of this issue, we don't have it. Our solution follows from a special car liability law, wherein any car on the road is legally required to have insurance. The insurance limit of such policy may never be lower than: - bodily injury etc.: Unlimited. - material damages: limited to around 1,5 million USD If the car in question doesn't have insurance, it is still insured and the cost is spread among all licensed insurers. Only in cases of DUI may the company (companies) claim regressus, or recover cost from the culpable party. Where this gets interesting, however, is when your field comes in. If it's a domestic accident with domestic parties, the law applies regardless. If the culpable party is foreign, with or without insurance, the law applies to the benefit of the damaged party - even when the accident happens anywhere in the EU/EEA area. If, however, a foreign citizen has an accident caused by a domestic citizen the case is tried in the foreign country, but with liability according to the domestic insurance terms. In cases of domestic accidents with foreign (insured or uninsured) parties, it looks like the case should be tried in the country of origin of the tortfeasor with their insurance law and insurance terms, however there are exceptions (because there are always exceptions) - because of an approval requirement for foreign insurance coverage. Not gonna get into that. This is apparently "cross border" insurance law, and not something 99% of us ever touch, because it's never an issue. Almost always, the law applies and gives about as good a coverage as you could reasonably need. We have similar problems to what you're talking about in contract law, but that's not really subject to statutory regulation in the same way. Let me know what the correct answer turns out being, it's pretty interesting stuff. nm posted:Is the government people? I'm not even sure it's human.
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Apr 12, 2017 08:38
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Phil Moscowitz posted:How barbaric! Sounds like socialism. How much do these unlimited liability policies cost? It is very much some socialisms there. My own is about 1200 USD a year, but I drive a not-very-safe SUV. What happens when both parties are uninsured, which I'm sure is a thing that can happen? Also, way to pass ineffective legislation if people are allowed to waive coverage of this kind. Also, those amounts are hilariously inadequate. Your entire infrastructure is based around the car, people are practically required to drive and I don't think the US has the very best road safety record if I can be so bold. By the way, insurance isn't a liability limit here: For material damages above the coverage you can file a claim directly at the culpable party, but only for damages over this amount. Pretty rare, but not unheard of in industrial car accidents, though companies often have special insurance on top of this. You are, however, required to claim against insurance first exept in criminal or negligent damages situations, or you may lack standing for a direct claim. Also, even more socialisms: disability benefits for permanent bodily injury are also taken into account, but come on top of insurance payout AND life insurance payout (which also pays for permanent disability above a certain percentage). This gets hilariously complicated, because they do reduce the amount of disability benefits, but not dollar-for-dollar, it's according to a special law that absolutely nobody - including the loving department of social benefits - really knows how works. I've handled a few of these cases, one recent one where the beneficiary got paid a good 100 000,00 $ above what they were entitled to because of an insurance fuckup. The company was entitled to claim the money back condictio indebiti, but due to their own fuckups we settled it for 8 000,00 $. Socialism means systems, systems mean mistakes and fuckups, which means work. Loads of work. I really recommend socialism for the US, you ought to try it some time. Nice piece of fish fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Apr 12, 2017 |
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Apr 12, 2017 17:04
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Phil Moscowitz posted:It's a free country! If nobody has insurance, lawyers are free not to take the case, the at-fault person is free to illegally drive around their smashed-up jalopy (until they're picked up on a bench warrant and jailed for failure to pay the "no proof of insurance" ticket), and the injured person is free to lose his job because his car was totaled, free to go bankrupt from medical bills, and free to live the rest of their life in constant neck and back pain. Jesus loving christ, USA. You can do better. In our case, the insurer can demand the tortfeasor included in the suit, which is sometimes done if the company thinks it's got grounds for simultaneous claim, at which point it becomes a sort of weird three-way. blarzgh posted:They go to Court and sue over who was negligent, which is the process that insurance basically streamlines. But in reality, they usually just walk away because they can't even afford to fix their car if they can't afford insurance, so how will they pay a lawyer to sue another indigent person they can't collect from? Right. Of course. Wouldn't this be covered by legal aid insurance making it a lot cheaper to sue even if you're unlikely to collect? Oh wait, you people probably don't have that. Car and house insurance almost always (as a prerequisite) comes with legal aid insurance which - in case you end up in a legal battle - will cover most costs up to and including municipal court, sometimes (if it's a good insurance) even high court. SlyFrog posted:Update: nothing else figured out, still on decaying death spiral at firm, but seeing new psychiatrist on Friday. Just to say: I've been reading through this thread (because I'm home, sick as hell with the flu as a nice reward for spending my first two days of an ostensibly week-long easter holiday in emergency CPA tribunal hearings), and I've read up on your posts and situation. Firstly, thanks for an entertaining read, you've given me a lot to think about regarding my own future and by own work bullshit problems (which in many ways though not nearly in the same magnitude mirror some of yours). Secondly, the way I read you I feel like you are way way too hard on yourself. In your line of specialty, I can completely understand experiencing symptoms of burnout and serious psychological stress from that kind of nitpicky document review, speaking as a mid-law general practice attourney. I also completely understand feeling stuck, which unfortunately is really the perfect way to exacerbate already existing problems. If I can offer an opinion, I think that your lack of progress with therapy and such is probably not all too uncommon among legal professionals. We're all somewhat smart (sometimes in our own very special way, but whatever) and are incredibly adept at overanalysis, too arrogant to take advice seriously and cerebral enough to constantly dwell and mill on our issues. Combined with the fact that you've had a crappy last few years, I find your issues to be completely understandable and I'm very sorry you're going through this. I'm not in any position to offer any advice, but I'll say this: I don't buy that you're nearly as incompetent as you feel you are. I'm certain that there in actual fact are very few people able to do your job. While I'm unsure how well it applies to a totally different market in the US, the older attourneys I know that have suffered similar issues have variously gone on medical leave, left to become an independent consulting attourney in doc review (requires connections) or started a more rural private general practice to live off of hicks who don't know any better. The latter of which I can totally see doing, since biglaw hoovers up everything in or near cities. I'm sure you've considered all of this already seeing as this has been discussed over a few hundred pages of thread, but I wouldn't be quick to rule most or all possibilites out just yet. Even if you're worried you don't have the passion to spare for anything else and that any new job will end up sucking as much as your current one, you don't know that this will be the case. You do know how miserable you are now. Regardless, my real suggestion is to move to a farm and work part time as a green law attourney/part time goat herder. Work in allodial law. It's a blast.
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Apr 13, 2017 19:23
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blarzgh posted:Not really. We have 400,000,000 people living in 50 different quasi-countries, across 3,797,000 square miles, with 4,071,000 miles of roads governed and enforced by 2 to 5 different law enforcement agencies on any one stretch. You should consider becoming a country, then. No, all jokes aside, the US is very much exceptional in many respects not the least of which is how your country is organized. You're in the weird position of being a "young" country that isn't really, because the US is one of the oldest democractic republics in the world - and it kind of shows. There's also the question of scale, which I will admit has an impact on both regulation as well as organization, politically and otherwise. A true meltingpot of chaos, if you will. In addition to socialism, you all should consider maybe just scrapping this whole "states rights" thing, just let federal law govern everything and let states control the details through municipal directives, like the rest of the civilized world. Might help get you back up on the list of functioning democracies (I'm joking, you have to impeach Trump for that). mastershakeman posted:I agree legal aid insurance should exist and be mandatory and pay us, the lawyers I should probably elaborate: While obviously, baked-in legal insurance with your car insurance doesn't really do crap if you - duh - don't have car insurance. However, the same insurance is also mandatorily tacked onto house, cabin or household inventory insurance, and it's a general insurance up to a certain amount for most civil cases, including litigation in car accidents. The coverage amount and co-pay varies, but the terms are generally the same, somewhere between 10 - 20 000,00$ legal fees covered, which will usually cover your own municipal court costs. So while legal aid insurance exists, it is common instead of mandatory and it pays the lawyers. In fact, lawyers are required by ethics to get paid through it, and also handle the claim for insurance coverage. blarzgh posted:I've dealt with a "legal aid insurance" program type thing a few times over the years, and its basically, "will you do X for 1/3rd your hourly rate, and do it in 2 hours?" and its like, "First, no I won't, second, they don't need X, they need A, B, and C, and third its going to take alot longer than two hours, whats the loving point of your program?" Yeah, that sounds pretty poo poo. We've a problem with some insurance companies trying to act as direct legal insurance (you get coverage, but you have to use our in-house lawyers) which raises a lot of questions of conflict of interest (you've essentially prepaid for a lawyer through insurance, no incentive to do good or any work), independent representation and limitations on other options in terms of legal aid. It's still up in the air if these companies are going to be outlawed, which I am of the definite opinion that they should. If not for the myriad of reasons that are already there, it's pretty lovely having to fight with your insurance to get actual help when you're in the middle of a legal battle.
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Apr 14, 2017 16:37
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Phil Moscowitz posted:What can you say about ethics that would possibly fill 20 pages? There was a roughly 20-page case study on ethics we had to submit along with the rest of the bar exam. This alone had a 40% fail rate, and the biggest contribution to the overall fail rate. Ethics in theory can be hard. Ethics in practice is... well... GamingHyena posted:The hilarious part of legal ethics is that once you get into practice the "may report" versus "shall report" and arcane rules end up boiling down to: Kalman posted:This + conflicts, though. Conflicts matter. Pretty much this, but especially that last one. I didn't actually make it more than 9 months before my first disciplinary case. A previous client had reported me because I'd won their case, and made sure all their legal costs were covered so they didn't pay a dime. I didn't do that last part without checking with them first (I was entirely within my rights and also obligated to do this). The disciplinary case was judged unfounded after less than a month and dismissed, kind of obvious really. Which goes to show that the clients with diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia aren't the most stable and rational of clients. Edit: I did not sleep with this client.
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Apr 15, 2017 21:34
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Lote posted:What was the complaint? Nice piece of fish posted:made sure all their legal costs were covered so they didn't pay a dime. This. Literally. I assume (the complaint wasn't all that coherent) that they wanted the option of paying for it all themselves? It'd probably be an ethics violation for me to allow that, though. I don't think it's ever come up as an issue, so I don't know. Look Sir Droids posted:Plenty of perfectly good lawyers get dinged for this bc some clients expect more communication than is necessary. Especially in retrospect if you lost their case. Absolutely. And it is a profession full of people who will gladly use any excuse to hang you for the slightest fuckup or omission. I'm glad some collegiality still remains, but that is quickly evaporating in today's corporate law environment.
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Apr 16, 2017 10:55
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Phil Moscowitz posted:Seems more like lawyers underreport other lawyers. I love reading the bar journal discipline section and seeing all these lovely lawyers that I've run across over the years, finally getting disbarred. Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. The same collegiality that protects the innocent also protects the guilty. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Pook Good Mook posted:This is certainly the case in the criminal bar. Just once it would be nice to read about a prosecutor who gets nailed on a violation of 3.6 (Trial Publicity). What's the violation there, public presumption of innocence?
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Apr 17, 2017 09:08
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Pook Good Mook posted:http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_3_6_trial_publicity.html Gleri posted:I never comment publicly on my cases. It's simply not down around here at all despite the fact that I technically have authority to speak for the government to the press. I leave it to the cops to comment if there's a public safety concern or about the fact of arrests and charges. But it does seem from American TV at least that DAs will hold press conferences and such. I guess where they're elected officials that makes some sense? It seems like a cultural difference. Umm, why is rules of professional conduct (for attourneys) a thing for prosecutors? Do they not have their own code of ethics to follow under review of Internal Affairs or the prosecutor branch? Also, right with there with Gleri, that's really the only sensible approach given the role of the prosecution. Pook Good Mook posted:You're allowed to hold a press conference to give objective details. You aren't allowed to go on TV and talk about how the defendant is a literal demon who would rape and murder the viewer's grandmother if they had the chance and by golly, isn't it just amazing how we caught this guy just in time. This is insane, by the way. This would be in direct violation of the principle of presumptive innocence, not to mention the ECHR: Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights posted:2. Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law. And yes, the Court has ruled against prosecutors willing to a: name the defendant and b:give a public statement to the effect of concluding implicitly or explicitly that they are guilty before trial is complete. Why even do this? Why sully the validity of the process for political or personal gain? It's a pathetic surrender of due process.
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Apr 17, 2017 20:53
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mastershakeman posted:are you really this naive or is it an internet persona thing blarzgh posted:I think he's a foreigner. To me, you are the foreigners. Did you ever think of that, man?  Alexeythegreat posted:In Europe, some areas of international law are an actual thing that exists. Human rights law is one of these areas. And in a big way. Human Rights, or specifically the ECHR, are usually incorporated into national law, oftentimes even written into the constitution itself or at least given weight whenever conflicting with national law. This has a bunch of important effects, not the least of which procedural. For example, this means that in general in Europe you have the right to be considered "charged" with a criminal offence once you are detained, which unlocks a bunch of rights that are vital to your defence, not the least of which the immediate right to an attourney. ECHR also homogenizes a (very strict) principle of double jeopardy as another for instance, and even imposes a positive obligation to act on states under art. 2 and 3 where the member nation is required to promptly and efficiently investigate, prosectute and punish murder and torture. You wouldn't think that last one would be much of a right, but Turkey (that shining beacon on a hill when it comes to human rights  ) has been convicted several times for that.It is some very real poo poo, because it also extends to property rights (property is human rights, who knew?). Phil Moscowitz posted:You're right, lots of countries in Europe doing things differently. And even in some countries where you don't have to do the perp walk, you can be incarcerated without charge or cause for days. Yeah, I was gonna say this doesn't happen that much and then I remember I had a case last year where this basically happened to a client of mine. I mean, for certain definitions of "without charge or cause". If you are detained you are automatically "charged" and are entitled to a prompt (like, within a few hours I believe) and written explanation of the charge against you in a language you understand, and then a lawyer. That is, of course, if they follow that rule and let you know you have that right if you don't already know... This is the same ruleset that is so strict and so strictly interpreted, that the norwegian mass murderer/terrorist wannabe Breivik actually got what I believe is a municipal court judge to agree to pass verdict on human rights abuse because quote:Brevik had argued during a four-day hearing at the Skien prison 80 miles (130km) from Oslo, where he is serving his sentence, that solitary confinement, as well as frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed while moving between cells, violated his human rights. I mean for gently caress's sake. I think it was later overruled though, but it goes to show just what kind of bleeding-heart liberals you're dealing with here.
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Apr 18, 2017 07:53
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Non Serviam posted:Like everywhere else, European counties have also passed strict anti terrorism laws that allow the detention of anybody without charges, incomunicado, for days. Oh hell yeah. Europeans aren't on average smarter than americans in any real sense, we allow big government to gently caress us over just as much as the next continent. Some even have a secret hearing system for wiretaps and computer intrusion, where the police technically need a court order and you're entitled to an attourney for the proceedings, but the attourney can't tell the client or contact them in any way because duh. Surveillance. So you get a case tried in absentia and you won't even hear about it until after they pick you up, at which point you get introduced to the lawyer that's been representing you for months. It's hilarious.
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Apr 18, 2017 09:33
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Alexeythegreat posted:Here in Russia, there are lawyers whose primary practice is doing ECHR cases where Russia violated [insert literally any provision of the ECHR] Sounds like a good racket. Wait, domestically or direct complaints? Russia does have art. 13 remedies, right? CaptainScraps posted:A lawyer refers me a case where the social study is horrific: basically, it says that there are loving rats in this guy's house and he has an anger management problem. They have a hearing and the judge places the kids with dad and smacks him on visitation. Yeah. This is why I don't like CPS or custody cases and generally avoid them like the plague. I'm an attourney, not a babysitter, and if my client can't be bothered to unfuck their life I can't be bothered to yell at them until they do. Also I just got Dallas-lawyered in a remote municipal court decision I got today. This week is starting out great.
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Apr 19, 2017 08:26
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